This is the transcript of episode 76 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.
MIRANDA: Neither sanctions nor international reports can bring down a government, especially an authoritarian dictatorship like Ortega and Murillo.
GRESSIER, HOST: That’s Nicaraguan journalist Wilfredo Miranda, co-founder of the exiled digital outlet Divergentes. On the heels of new U.S. sanctions this week, he says international reporting can only build historical memory and pave the way for criminal trials down the road — after the regime is gone.
On today’s episode: the in-custody death of a Nicaraguan political prisoner draws new sanctions, Guatemala finally gives up on prosecuting journalists on phony charges, and search parties in El Salvador poke holes in the official homicide count. This is Central America in Minutes.
Sanctions after death of Brooklyn Rivera
On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions on more than 100 Nicaraguan officials after accusing the Ortega-Murillo regime of complicity in the death of political prisoner and Indigenous leader Brooklyn Rivera.
Rubio directly accused Nicaraguan official Lumberto Campbell Hooker of playing a role in denying Rivera medical care and preventing his family from burying his remains. Campbell is president of the Supreme Electoral Council, has been under sanctions since 2019 and is the brother of Nicaragua’s Ambassador in the United States.
“The United States stands with the Nicaraguan people who, like Rivera, aspire to see a free Nicaragua,” Rubio said on Monday.
With this new restriction, the U.S. increased the number of Nicaraguan officials subject to various U.S. sanctions in the country to a towering total of 2,350.
Podcast: No Right to a Funeral in Nicaragua
The Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs condemned the disappearance of six members of Rivera’s family who were detained by the Sandinista police while claiming his body. U.S. officials also called for the release of political prisoners in Nicaragua.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau also blamed the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship for his death.
Nicaraguan journalist Wilfredo Miranda told El Faro English that six of Brooklyn's relatives remain detained by the regime. One son who was captured managed to escape and is still in hiding.
To date, no charges have been filed against his relatives and their whereabouts remain unknown.
Tininishka Rivera, his daughter who lives in exile in Spain, said that the family was never informed of his whereabouts and denied that any relatives were present at the time of his death.
She asked Nicaraguan authorities to allow her to enter the country to bury her father in keeping with their traditions.
His relatives, who traveled to Nicaragua to transport his body and bury him on the Caribbean coast, were also banned from attending the funeral organized by the regime in the capital.
After spending more than two years in prison without facing any criminal charges, Brooklyn Rivera died on May 30, becoming the eighth political prisoner to die in state custody, according to Miranda. Confidencial puts the number at seven.
In 2023, Rivera, 73, was arrested at his home on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua after denouncing the situation of Indigenous people in the country at an international forum.
Last August, religious freedom advocate Mauricio Alonso Petri was another to die in custody. His family, too, was denied a funeral.
A win for press freedom in Guatemala
At a hearing this week in Guatemala City, journalist Alex Valdéz learned that charges against him and eight other journalists and columnists had been dropped. They had been criminalized while covering the trial of Jose Rubén Zamora, the publisher of the defunct newspaper elPeriódico.
VALDÉZ: We’ve fought a legal battle for three years to defend the work of the press. It’s not just about the journalists who worked at elPeriódico. It’s about defending the work that we all do in Guatemala.
GRESSIER: On June 1, the Public Prosecutor's Office requested to withdraw its appeal at the Constitutional Court regarding Váldez and the others from elPeriódico, one of the most relevant investigative outlets in Guatemala. Multiple were in exile.
Desisting from criminal cases against journalists is a big departure from the prison-or-exile tactics of former Attorney General Consuelo Porras, who left office last month.
On May 17, lawyer Gabriel García Luna became top prosecutor, chosen by President Bernardo Arevalo. This transition is a fundamental administrative shift for the institution.
The withdrawal of the appeal against journalists abandons the ”conspiracy for obstruction of justice” charges used by Porras to criminalize journalists reporting on judicial anomalies.
An appeal was filed on February 1 by the Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity (FECI), an embattled unit which the new attorney general has now completely dissolved.
This decision effectively closes the case: Multiple courts ruled that any complaint against the newspaper belonged in a Tribunal of Print rather than the penal system.
These dismissals align with calls for the safe return of reporters living in exile under legal harassment. Between 2022 and 2023 alone, more than 20 journalists fled Guatemala, like Alex Valdéz, who just returned after a three-year exile.
This harassment has frequently involved arbitrary arrest and the misuse of the Law Against Organized Crime. Publisher Jose Rubén Zamora’s imprisonment and the deliberate economic strangulation of elPeriódico forced the newspaper to fold in 2023.
The Committee to Protect Journalists wrote a statement calling the withdrawal of criminal charges against the journalists “an important development and a first step in the right direction toward restoring respect for freedom of expression and the rule of law in Guatemala.”
The judicial outlook in Guatemala remains complex. But the recent withdrawal of high-profile cases suggests a big shift in the legal landscape in favor of freedom of expression.
Disputed homicide figures in El Salvador
Now to El Salvador. In the first half of the year, at least 81 dead bodies were found in different regions of the country according to Desaparecidos SOS, a community group who works to track down missing persons.
During the same period, the National Civil Police reported only 33 bodies and claims that El Salvador has racked up 137 days with no homicides this year.
For example, in May alone, the Police documented 10 deaths, but according to Desaparecidos SOS, 25 bodies were found.
Between the two sets of statistics, there’s a discrepancy of 48 bodies that do not appear in official records. Figures from the National Civil Police only show daily statistics reporting zero homicides.
In May, cases like that of a 34-year-old man whose body was found in a ravine, but was not reported by the authorities, highlight the inconsistencies in how the regime counts homicides.
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The Secretary General of the Police Workers Movement, Marvin Reyes, told newspaper Prensa Gráfica that when bodies are found, authorities document the cases as “deaths from other causes” or “deaths to be determined by autopsy”, but later fail to report whether it was a homicide.
In early January, Nayib Bukele said that 90 percent of homicides were due to domestic violence. But the Organization of Salvadoran Women for Peace reported that at least 10 women have been victims of femicide so far in 2026, and several of those cases were classified by the authorities simply as homicides.
One example is the case of a 45-year-old woman who was found dead in her home, yet the police did not report the case.
Over the years, Nayib Bukele has highlighted the days during his administration that have passed without any homicides, but unofficial counts paint a different picture.
This episode was written by Leyrian Colón Santiago, Gabriel Labrador, and Graciela Barrera, with editing by Roman Gressier and sound design by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart, and YouTube.